


watching every motion

by forochel



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Old Kingdom, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>part of the <a href="http://forochel.tumblr.com/tagged/abhorsen-au">LES AMIS DEMOCRATISE THE OLD KINGDOM</a> AU that I've sort of been noodling around with. </p>
<p>this one's about how R and the Amis meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watching every motion

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from Berlin's [Take My Breath Away](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNYvzKy-i9k) because that is apparently what reading this made bropunzeling think of, and I think it's hilarious. and [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Kingdom_\(book_series\)) is the fantasy universe that I'm dumping Les Amis into.

At times, Grantaire regrets his open-door policy.

He’s taking his mid-afternoon break and just reaching for his wine when Jehan comes tumbling in. 

“Wha —?” Grantaire asks around the paintbrush dangling from his mouth.

Jehan gets up, dusting himself off briskly. “Oh, I forgot about those loose cobblestones again. In front of your door. You really should see about getting them fixed, R — but anyway, more important things, have you heard about coffee?”

"What, that Ancelstierran fad?" R asks.

"I'm told it's not even from Ancelstierre!" Jehan tells him excitedly, "but they trade it on."

"We can't afford that sort of thing, Jehan."

Jehan gives him a sad, pouting look. "Please, R? It smells so lovely, like — oh, you know, that charter mark, the one you used for that university commission." 

The university council — an ancient and most noble institution of learning that had gone the way of most other ancient and most noble institutions during the Interregnum — had commissioned Grantaire to do a series of bas-reliefs for the lintels and posts of their lecture amphitheatre. He'd been told to make it lively, and put a kick into it for those early morning lectures. It had been interesting, for a while, but five doorways made for 15 bas-reliefs, and truth be told he'd run out of imagery pretty damn quickly after the first two and a half. Imagery fitting for a university, anyway. It was a good commission, though, and had paid well, and Grantaire is intrigued by this extra-Ancelstierran fad that smelt like the charter marks for alertness and knowing.

Stretching, Grantaire cracks his back and says, "Oh, all right then." 

The smile on Jehan's face makes Grantaire look away in embarrassment, on the pretence of looking for his coin pouch.

He makes sure he locks the doors to his workshop securely, drawing the marks of binding and security over the lock that he'd made — one of the few things Grantaire's specifically made for himself — before they turn left to go up the cobbled alleyway and onto the high street; the uneven cobbles soon give way to wide paving stones, where horses and carts go clopping past in either direction: up to the castle and down to the docks. Narrow-fronted shops aisle the high street and run in long strips back from the street. Once they may have made up entire houses, but at some point in the past the breaks in these buildings became dim passageways, and the buildings themselves divvied up into sets of rooms — just like Grantaire's own workshop. 

The briny smell of the sea curls up from the docks, and the smacking of the waves against the wood-and-stone docks as well as the cries of the seamen and docksmen are just about discernible, in the spaces between the shouting tradesmen and bustle of traffic. Jehan leads Grantaire up and away from the docks; as they walk the shopfronts get wider and have fresher coats of paint, and it is just as Grantaire's is about to feel extremely out of place that they turn off into an alleyway. Even the alleys here, higher up in Belisaere, are wider. This one is so wide that it splits into two, with a lop-sided building like a rock braiding a stream. 

"We're here!" Jehan says excitedly. "Can't you just _smell_ it?" 

Grantaire eyes the building; it looks as though the second storey is about the slough off the first one. Walls sagging outwards, windows without glass in, and the incongruous tinkle of fine china. 

"I can smell a disaster waiting to happen," Grantaire says wryly. Then something catches his eye, something in the wall, tucked just out of sight into the base of one of the oriel windows on the second storey. "Hmm, what is that?"

"What is what?" 

Wandering closer to the building, Grantaire stops right under one of the windows and squints upwards. He almost wishes he had his binoculars with him. Jehan had given him a pair, one Overwinter, because Grantaire had in one of his drunken moments mentioned his desire to learn how to make and fly a Paperwing. 

"Huh," says Grantaire to himself. "That's clever."

" _What's_ clever?" Jehan asks, slightly testy. 

"There's a bit of casting put into the timber framing of the building," Grantaire tries pointing it out. "Which is why the disaster I await is possibly not going to happen."

Jehan squints at where he thinks Grantaire is pointing, but to no avail. He hasn't got the eye for it. 

Shrugging, Jehan tugs at Grantaire's sleeve and says, "That's a relief to know. But there will be a disaster if we don't go in there this very moment."

"I only said _possible_ ," Grantaire says darkly, but allows himself to be pulled along. 

It does smell quite good inside — not like chartermarks, like Jehan said, but Grantaire's never really got the hang of chartermark scents himself — it smells warm and _rich_. 

That might have to do with the sprawling knot of boys - no, young men - talking over each other loudly in one corner of the main room, though. The words 'POLITICAL SYSTEM' and 'ANCELSTIERRE' and 'TAXES' and 'MONARCHY' appear to recur frequently. 

"University students," Grantaire observes, in the same tones, had he known, an Ancelstierran would have said "posh twats'. "I should have expected."

Jehan punches him in the arm. "They're quite nice!"

"Oh?" Grantaire raises an eyebrow, and grins when Jehan starts blushing. "And here I was, under the impression that you'd never been here before."

"I haven't!" Jehan protests, and pulls him along to a spare table. Grantaire notices that it's in a corner _perfectly_ situated for the observation of said university students. Because he is a good friend and Jehan, he is well aware, has been his saviour in many ways, Grantaire does not point this out. He doesn't have to, anyway, because Jehan continues, "They gather in other places too, like the inn on the corner of the fish market and the crafts market, and sometimes their leader makes speeches in the university square." 

"Oh," says Grantaire. "Joy." 

A waitress, clad in black and green, stops by their table and asks them what they want.

Grantaire blinks and looks across the table at Jehan. 

“Um,” Jehan tries, flushing harder. “Coffee?” 

She laughs kindly at them: Jehan blushing and Grantaire confused.

“I’ll bring you a pot to share, and milk and sugar to add,” she says. “Is there anything else you want with it? Biscuits? Cake?” 

“So it’s like tea,” Grantaire concludes. “But more expensive.” 

“Not quite,” the waitress says. “No cake, then? The baker’s done a very good chocolate one today.” 

Jehan looks at him quickly, before smiling up at her and saying, “No thank you.”

“That’s fine, my lovelies,” she says, “I’ll have your coffee with you in a bit,” and bustles off. She has a lot of bustle to her, and Grantaire’s eye is drawn after her, at least until Jehan coughs and kicks him under the table. 

“Honestly, R,” Jehan says, admonishing.

“What?” retorts Grantaire. “I just have an eye for the aesthetic.”

Jehan shakes his head and then his face lights up as a tall man detaches himself from the group of university students and comes loping over to them.

“Bahorel!” he cries. 

“Jehan!” Bahorel booms. “You came! And brought your friend with you.”

Grantaire eyes him beadily. And then he eyes Jehan beadily.

“Grantaire,” he introduces himself, and doesn’t hold a hand out. “I don’t believe Jehan’s mentioned you before.”

“You wouldn’t have come otherwise!” Jehan protested. “I thought it would do you good, you know, meeting new people. Arguing about philosophy.” 

“Is that what you do?” Grantaire asks Bahorel, waving a hand at the students in the corner. 

“In part,” Bahorel says. “Will you come sit with us?” 

Their waitress comes bustling up with a tray in her hands just then, and Bahorel ducks away with more grace than a man his size would be expected to have. 

“Hello, Saya,” he says, taking the tray from her. “Let me help you with that.” 

Saya narrows her eyes at him and smooths her hands down her apron. “Bahorel. You’re not getting these two nice young men into your little society, are you?” 

Affecting a look of deep hurt, Bahorel says, “We’re nice young men too!” 

“Hmmph,” Saya harrumphs. “You two best steer clear of them lads and their ideas. And put that tray down on their table, Bahorel, or I’ll smack you!” 

Bahorel does so, but he continues to lean against the side of Jehan’s chair. “Well?” he asks.

“Be careful,” Saya tells them, and bustles off again, tutting audibly when one of Bahorel’s company stands up and starts talking. The tumult of the boys talking over each other dies down almost immediately, as they all turn towards him.

“Our leader,” whispers Bahorel, “Enjolras. Will you come sit with us? We are ever glad for more friends.” 

There is the hopeful look on Jehan’s face, and there is Enjolras, holding forth on a thing named _democracy_ and another called _egalitarianism_. He is, to Grantaire’s perception, stern and unyielding like the best tempered steel, yet sheathed in delicate beauty that fascinates and is too, too lovely; it strikes at the very centre of Grantaire’s being. 

“Yes,” he hears himself say, almost hoarsely. Jehan’s face flashes from surprise to suspicion. 

Bahorel’s own is simple and clear, and displays gladness. He picks up the tray and says, “Come on, then,” and proceeds with it to the cluster of tables that he and his friends have commandeered. Across the room, Saya shakes her head at him. 

Behind him, Jehan catches Grantaire’s sleeve. He speaks plainly: “I _am_ surprised you agreed, R. Why?”

“As I said,” Grantaire says, and he sounds breathless even to his own ear. “I have an eye for the aesthetic.”

***


End file.
